BIRMINGHAM, MI — Fred Procter doesn’t like the notion of hyphenated Americans. “I am an American who happens to be black, who happens to have a little more melanin,” he told me.
Nearly twenty years ago, he became the first-ever black principal of Birmingham Groves High School, a diverse, but mainly white school in one of Michigan’s most affluent cities. He stayed 12 years, more than twice the average of principals these days.
He was extremely popular. Nobody saw him as militant or angry; two white teachers, each of whom had been there more than 30 years, said he was one of the best principals their school had ever had. Eventually, he retired, spent some time in California, and then came back to Michigan and opened The Practice Zone, a basketball and pickle-ball training facility in suburban Farmington Hills. It was just starting to turn a profit, when COVID-19 hit, and he had to close.
Two months later, while waiting to see when or if he would be able to reopen, a man in Minneapolis named George Floyd died after a white police officer kept his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. His last words reportedly were, “I can’t breathe.”
That led Procter to write a stunning essay called “Just Breathe,” which he posted on Facebook and other social media, and which dozens of people have shared since then. “The reality is that black people haven’t been able to breathe since the first cargo of slaves was transported 400-plus years ago.”
Centuries later, he said it was still “hard to breathe when I don’t know if I will make it home each night. Anxious about the phone call – the one that tells me my child will not make it home and is now a temporary resident of the county morgue. Just breathe? Can’t.”
He added, “I’m 63 years old and can’t ever recall a deep breath … maybe when the time comes for me to leave the world I’ll be able to breathe. If not, then I guess I’ll spend eternity continually running up the down escalator as many black people run in America.
“Just breathe? I can’t breathe!” he concluded.
Procter, a disciplined, well-toned man who was a legendary high school and college basketball coach before becoming a high school principal, said he didn’t write because he was angry or bitter. Racism, he said, “is like COVID. People dismiss it until it affects them. I don’t blame anybody for not understanding it who hasn’t experienced it.”
His own education in race began at the age of 16 in his native Detroit. He was waiting for a bus with his 10-year-old brother when he felt a gun in his back. It was a policeman, who suspected the teenager of a bank robbery. “Besides being scared, I thought, man, whoever heard of a bank robber making his getaway on a city bus?”
Eventually, the police realized he was innocent, probably because he was with his little brother – not to mention that he didn’t match the description of the real robber. But they didn’t apologize.
“They just said ‘okay, you can go.’ he remembered. As the policeman walked away, his partner tried to console him, saying words to the effect of, “the kid probably did something bad anyway.”
Years later, Procter was coaching women’s basketball at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, and had lunch with a young white woman friend who told him “I don’t think racism is still a big deal.”
Later that day, they were going somewhere in two cars, and he blew a tire. She took him to service station after service station, where nobody was willing to come out and help a black man, though he offered to pay them. A hardware store didn’t even want to sell him a wrench so that he could change the tire himself.
His friend changed her mind about racism.
That was in 1990, and he doesn’t think things have changed much today. He knows what it is like to be stopped by police for driving while black. He remembers standing in the office when he was principal, chatting with some of his employees, and a man entering and asking, “you maintenance?”
Throughout the dozen years he was principal, he said, “I did not have the freedom to screw up. I realized I was the only black in school administration in this district. If I screw up, they won’t get another chance. I knew that every single day I walked in that door.”
He never screwed up. His superintendent backed him totally in the one somewhat racially charged conflict he had with a parent.
But he never once felt he could breathe easy.
Finally, Procter asked himself in his essay, “What do I want, or wish? Honestly, I just want the benefit of the doubt.”
He noted that when the Taliban was killing American soldiers in Afghanistan, they didn’t care what color they were. He doesn’t think we should either. “I hate the concept of hyphenated Americans.
“I’m not an African-American. I am an American,” he said.
“I’m actually a pretty good guy, and want police officers to assume that I’m not a threat when they approach me rather than preparing for a conflict. I just want to be free from judgment until I have a chance to interact and give an indication of my character.
He paused. “I’d just like to breathe.”
(Editor’s Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
